Excavator bucket

ABSTRACT

An excavator bucket, which includes a mounting and a blade. The blade extends downwardly from the mounting at an angle of between 40 degrees and 50 degrees. The blade has a mounting attachment end which is attached to the mounting, a ground piercing end, and opposed upstanding outwardly angled sidewalls. The blade has a forward oriented curvature or bend spaced from the ground piercing end.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an excavator bucket designed tominimize ground disturbance during use.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

When working in environmentally sensitive areas it is desirable tominimize ground disturbance. There will hereinafter be described anexcavator bucket that was expressly developed for use in suchenvironmentally sensitive areas.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the present invention there is provided an excavatorbucket, which comprises a mounting and a blade. The blade extendsdownwardly from the mounting at an angle of between 40 degrees and 50degrees. The blade has a mounting attachment end which is attached tothe mounting, a ground piercing end, and opposed upstanding outwardlyangled sidewalls. The blade having a forward oriented curvature or bendspaced from the ground piercing end.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features of the invention will become more apparent fromthe following description in which reference is made to the appendeddrawings, the drawings are for the purpose of illustration only and arenot intended to in any way limit the scope of the invention to theparticular embodiment or embodiments shown, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation view of the excavator bucket constructed inaccordance with the teachings of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front elevation view of the excavator bucket of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a top plan view of the excavator bucket of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a side elevation view of an alternative embodiment of theexcavator bucket of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The preferred embodiment, an excavator bucket generally identified byreference numeral 10, will now be described with reference to FIG. 1through 3.

Structure and Relationship of Parts:

Referring to FIG. 1, excavator bucket 10 includes a mounting 12including mounting plate 13 and a blade 14. Blade 14 extends downwardlyfrom mounting 12 at an angle of 45 degrees, but preferably between 40degrees and 50 degrees. Referring to FIG. 3, blade 14 has a mountingattachment end 16, a ground piercing end 18, and opposed upstandingsidewalls 20. Referring to FIG. 2, sidewalls 20 may angle outwardly fromblade 14, such by an outward bend of between 10 and 45 degrees. Assidewalls 20 extend upward and outward, it is easier to remove soil fromblade 14 during digging. Getting the dirt out of buckets or blades is aparticular concern in wet clay or sticky mud. If wet clay or mud isbeing dug, it may also be preferable to have shorter sidewalls 20. Toimprove the ground piercing capability of blade 14, teeth 22 may projectforward from ground piercing end 18. Referring again to FIG. 1, blade 14has a forward oriented bend 24 at an angle of 20 degrees, but preferablybetween 15 degrees and 25 degrees. As depicted, sidewalls 20 slopedownwardly from bend 24 to ground piercing end 18, such that sidewalls20 are negligible at ground piercing end 18. Bend 24 is spaced fromground piercing end 18 approximately one third of the way along blade14. The length of blade 14 from attachment end 16 to ground piercing end18 is greater than five times the width of blade 14 between sidewalls20.

Operation:

Excavator bucket 10 is attached to a prime mover, such as a back hoe, bymounting 12.

Excavator bucket 10 is inserted and moves through the ground basedprimarily on the horizontal pulling force pulling toward the prime mover(not shown) to provide the necessary force to excavate. The pullingforce of the excavator moves material into excavator bucket 10 as blade14 moves horizontally along the length of the ditch. It is to be notedthat this is a horizontal force and does not use a tip radius or curlforce, as do other buckets. Teeth 22 help ground piercing end 18 tobreak and pass through the soil. Bend 24 assists in moving soil into andupward along excavator bucket 10 from ground piercing end 18 towardattachment end 16.

Once excavator bucket 10 is filled, low sidewalls 20 which are tiltedoutwardly allows for easy cleaning of excavator bucket 10 in most, ifnot all soil conditions.

While excavator bucket 10 may be made in any size, it is preferred thatit be made long and narrow. The desired length will depend upon thedepth of ditch or trench being excavated.

It is preferred that the length of blade 14 be selected to enableexcavator bucket to reach the desired depth for the trench withoutmounting plate 13 for the quick attached assembly entering into theditch. This allows the trench to be much narrower, perhaps as much asone third of the width of trenches dug with conventional excavatorbuckets.

Variation:

Referring to FIG. 4, instead of blade 14 having a single bend 24 asdepicted in FIG. 1, blade 14 could also have a curvature (continuousbend) that begins at attachment end 16 and continues until groundpiercing end 18, or that includes a substantial portion of blade 14. Ifthis were done, it would be a tangent taken at a point partway alongblade 14 that would be at 45 degrees, and a tangent taken near groundpiercing end 18 that would be at 20 degrees.

In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in itsnon-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included,but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to anelement by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibilitythat more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearlyrequires that there be one and only one of the elements.

It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that modifications may bemade to the illustrated embodiment without departing from the spirit andscope of the invention as hereinafter defined in the Claims.

1. An excavator bucket, comprising: a mounting; a blade extendingdownwardly from the mounting at an angle of between 40 degrees and 50degrees, the blade having a mounting attachment end which is attached tothe mounting, a ground piercing end, and opposed upstanding outwardlyangled sidewalls, and the blade having a forward oriented curvature orbend spaced from the ground piercing end.
 2. The excavator bucket asdefined in claim 1, wherein the bend is at an angle of between 15degrees and 25 degrees.
 3. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1,wherein the sidewalls are angled outwardly from the blade.
 4. Theexcavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein teeth project forwardfrom the ground piercing end.
 5. The excavator bucket as defined inclaim 1, wherein the curvature or bend being spaced from the groundpiercing end approximately one third of the way along the blade.
 6. Theexcavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the sidewalls slopedownardly from the curvature or bend to the ground piercing end, thesidewalls being negligible at the ground piercing end.
 7. The excavatorbucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the blade has a width of between10 inches and 30 inches.
 8. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1,wherein the blade has a length from the attachment end to the groundpiercing end that is greater than five times a width of the bladebetween the sidewalls.
 9. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1,wherein the mounting comprises a mounting plate, the width of the bladebeing narrower than the width of the mounting plate.
 10. The excavatorbucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the blade has a length of between5 feet and 7 feet.